NEH Landmarks: Native American and African American Education in Kansas: Native American and African American Education in Kansas, 1830–1960

The Spencer Museum of Art invites you to visit historic sites, view works of art, and examine primary sources to better understand the history of racial discrimination in American education. To provide focus to this complex topic, our workshops will center on the educational experiences of Native Americans and African Americans in Kansas and will be guided by a diverse and engaging group of expert scholars, artists, and community leaders and activists. Kansas provides ideal location for exploring the history of racial inequality in American education. As historian and keynote lecturer Kim Warren notes, Kansas “has long been at the geographic and ideological center of battles over freedom, citizenship, equality, and education.”1 In the 19th century, Kansas served as a crossroads for Indigenous communities, abolitionists, free African Americans, and Euro-American homesteaders. This diverse population led to the development of equally diverse educational systems, including mission, boarding, and residential schools for American Indians and segregated schools for African American students. We will explore these educational institutions by visiting fascinating historic sites in northeast Kansas, including: Shawnee Indian Mission, a 12-acre National Historic Landmark that operated in the mid-1800s to provide academic and agricultural training to hundreds of American Indian students from more than twenty tribes, most of whom were forcibly removed from their tribes to attend; Haskell Institute (as preserved on the campus of Haskell Indian Nations University), one of the first federally-funded boarding schools for Native American students in the United States; Nicodemus, the only remaining all-African American settlement west of the Mississippi River that was founded in 1877 by “Exodusters,” the term used to describe the thousands of former slaves who migrated to Kansas from the south after Reconstruction; Sumner High School, the first segregated high school in Kansas, which operated as an all-Black school from 1905-1978; The Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, which traces the history and ongoing ramifications of this landmark court case in which Kansas became the epicenter of the national battle to eradicate school segregation in the United States In addition to engaging with historic sites, we will be using rich archival and artistic collections at the Spencer Museum of Art, the Spencer Research Library, and the Black Archives of Mid-America to inform our workshops. All of these resources foreground the lived experiences and Native American and African American students and their families so we can appreciate how these often marginalized and underrepresented voices complicate and enrich idealized notions of United States history. Chronologically, our workshops will concentrate on a period from about 1830-1960. This period begins with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which led to the resettlement, typically by force and mandate, of Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River into the newly formed “Indian Territory” to the west. This massive relocation effort led to death of thousands of American Indians and laid the groundwork for the “civilizing” missions of religious and government officials, culminating with Captian Richard H. Pratt’s now-famous 1892 mandate to “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man.” We will culminate our workshops by discussing the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court case and its immediate aftermath, which fed the Civil Rights Movement. Overview of the Workshops Our workshops will explore the history of Native American and African American education through an intensive week of site visits, readings, lectures, interactive presentations, guided tours, and curricular strategy sessions. As the art museum serving both the University of Kansas and the state of Kansas, the Spencer Museum of Art (SMA) is uniquely positioned to offer you opportunities to discover the educational experiences of these historically marginalized populations and to strengthen your curricular strategies for using historic sites, objects, works of art, and other primary sources. These workshops draw on our existing partnerships with leading scholars who research African American and Native American education; archivists and curators who maintain collections that document the experiences of these groups in Kansas; and local alumni and community organizations committed to sharing histories of segregation and integration with today's students. You will also be able to enjoy sustained interaction with our diverse and engaging project faculty throughout the workshops. Your exploration will be further enriched by ample opportunities to closely study of primary sources and works of art, which will be shared through extended visits to historic sites, local archives, a special exhibition at the Spencer Museum, and physical reproductions of documents and artworks. Throughout, our workshops will maintain a strong focus on studying history through individual experiences and encourage you to consider how historic sites and primary sources, including works of art, can present multiple points of access for a more expansive and inclusive understanding of American history. To that end, you will work independently and in small groups throughout the week to create visual storytelling projects that use photographs, works of art, and archival documents to examine the historic complexities of race in American education. You will also develop an accompanying lesson plan for engaging their students with the histories of Native Americans, African Americans, or other groups relevant to their geographic regions. Guiding Questions By the end of the workshops, you should have the content knowledge and skills to respond to three central questions: What were the educational experiences of Native Americans and African Americans in Kansas during the 19th and early 20th centuries? How can you incorporate these experiences into your classroom teaching? How do diverse perspectives complicate dominant narratives of American history and culture? We will work towards answering these questions by investigating specific examples of racial disparity in American educational systems. Each day, we will be guided by two questions: one focused on workshop content, the other on pedagogical strategies aimed at helping you incorporate this content into your teaching in practical ways. For a more detailed, chronological day-by-day overview, click on the Daily Schedule link above. Daily Questions Sunday: (1) What was the racial landscape of Kansas at the turn of the 20th century, and how did it impact the education of American African American and Native Americans? (2) How can multiculturalism and respect for diversity be fostered in classrooms? Monday: (1) What were the motivations for establishing separate and distinct educational systems for Native Americans in the early 19th century? (2) What primary sources are available for use in classroom settings, and how might teachers and students access them? Tuesday: (1) What policies led to the establishment of Native American boarding schools, and what was life like for students who attended them? (2) How can art- and object-based learning contribute to educational curricula? Wednesday: (1) How do the educational policies for and experiences of Kansas’s first African Americans differ from those of Native communities? (2) How can teachers and students study and experience cultural landmarks when travel is not possible? Thursday: (1) What was the rationale for creating a segregated high school, Sumner High School, in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1905, and how does the history of education in Kansas challenge perceptions of a monolithic African American perspective on segregation and the Civil Rights movement? (2) How can technology and new media connect students with American history? Friday: (1) How did the Brown v. Board of Education case come about, and how did the ruling change the face of education in the United States? (2) How do visits to historic landmarks and their onsite sources complicate and enrich teachers’ understandings about key moments in American history? Saturday: (1) Have your perceptions of the history of race and education in American shifted, and if so, in what ways? 2) How will the content explored this week be applied in your individual subject areas and classrooms?